


The Chain

by East of Eden (East_of_Eden22)



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Post Season 2, my idea for where season 3 could go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-03-20 12:23:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18992599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/East_of_Eden22/pseuds/East%20of%20Eden
Summary: Set after 2x08, my idea for where they could start off season 3. After Eve rejects Villanelle she finds herself in interesting company. During her dive into her new life she will see just how right Villanelle was right about them being the same. Maybe too much the same. Title from Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" cause to me their relationship at the end of season 2 can be best summed up by "Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies"





	1. Listen to the Wind Blow

It's the heat that rouses her from sleep, that itchy feeling of sweat you get in your arm and leg creases that makes you want to crawl out of your skin. Eve's head is a fog but she somehow struggles to open her eyes. Around her was a room, but more like a cabin than a hospital despite all the medical equipment around her.

"Well Eve, took you long enough. You would think this was your first time recovering from a gunshot wound." A woman sitting in a chair on the side of her bed chuckles at what Eve supposes she thought was a joke, staring expectantly at Eve like she knows the questions before Eve asks them.

"Where... where..?" Eve tries to form the sentence but as she becomes more alert, pain is creeping from her stomach choking the words out from her.

"Oh dear, that starting to sting a little? Well I needed you alert when you woke up since depending on how this conversation goes affects whether it's even worth the time and expense of putting any more pain meds into you so try to stay with me." The woman talked with the chipper tone of a pediatric nurse but it didn't match the edge Eve could feel to the conversation. "You're in the Italian countryside in one of our facilities. It's been about about 3 days since you're little Rome miss-hap and we scooped you up. Quite lucky you were in an secluded area of those ruins, would have been a big scene trying to spirit you away if you had been in a more public place."

"And who do you mean by 'we'?"

"Oh Eve, c'mon you know who we are, why the fact that you know who we are is the only reason we've gone to the trouble of saving you." The woman looked positively gleeful, like they were gossiping over some fun secret. The perkiness hiding the danger of the situation reminded Eve of the first night Villanelle broke into her house called out how dinner was delicious to Niko. As the realization hit Eve she got that same feeling from that night as when Villanelle held the knife to her sternum.

"You're The Twelve." She didn't say it as a question.

"See and it's that smart cookie thinking why you're here. Now we are none too happy with you Eve. Since you came into the picture you have been like a wasp in a spider web. You know the wasp is eventually gonna get all gummed up in the web and get got by the spider but man did you mess up a nice sized chunk of web before getting tied up." She rises from her chair and sits on the side of Eve's bed, getting in her space and her stare turns icy but her tone remains the same. "Would you like a tally Eve? At first it was just 'Oh, one of our sources in MI5 got compromised', sucks to lose an asset but it happens. Then our assassins decided to play the 3 stooges and fucked the cleanup of that up. Now I know that's not directly your fault, you probably don't even know about that but I'm just gonna put it under the umbrella of "The Villanelle and Konstantin Problem"." Eve starts to sweat and the ache in her side increases and feels almost hot as the manic tone in the woman's voice continues to escalate. "I could spend hours and a few bottles of vodka trying to dissect how some middle aged government worker caused one of our most effective agents to go AWOL but I sleep better thinking "eh psychopaths, it happens sometimes. Can't be part of a shadow organization without working with crazies." She takes a calming breath and seems to steady herself but Eve can still feel her heart pounding in her ears as she wondered if this woman knew she probably belonged in the crazy designation. "But then you got even more interesting. We had been wanting to get The Ghost on our side for a while but we couldn't figure out who she was or get in touch with her. Then you just pick her up outside a school like you're PTA buddies. And Aaron Peel. Now that's not a shining moment, you got played there but Carolyn Marten's has always been good at using people. Oh and poor Raymond, well not poor Raymond, he's probably more of a psychopath than your little girlfriend but he is the most significant blow you've made to us. Like an axe in the shoulder one might say." The woman chuckles to herself in that same pleased with her jokes way as before.

"How do you know that I killed Raymond?" Eve was trying not the throw up as this woman listed the mess the last year has been out to Eve, and yet she felt the tiniest twitch of pride somewhere deep and twisted in her that she had caused the 12 so much trouble.

"Please. A kill that sloppy and visceral? She's a brat and a pain but Villanelle is at least an artist. Well she's Dali, you're more Pollock. NCIS should have a axe in the neck episode, give those blood splatter fetishists a big ol' hard on."

"So I kill one of your higher-ups and yet you, what? Want me to work for you? I can imagine that's the only reason you've saved me?"

"Yes, well, while we aren't happy about all the trouble you've caused, you know what they say, 'all's fair in love and war'. Why we would be The Six if we killed every potential asset that had caused us problems in the past."

"So you want me for an asset?"

"Indeed. We are considering these last few months as like a working interview. We know you are bright, determined and creative. And now after Raymond we know you can kill when you have to which is always a lovely skill to have. You have no idea how frustrating it is to hear an asset you've been training for months chokes and gets killed cause they didn't have the balls to use some survival instincts in a compromising situation. Who know's between all of the shit you've had your hands in we have lost 3 assassins and our retirement guy, we are certainly in need of some fresh blood in the killer department."

"I'm not a killer," Eve tries to spit back but there isn't venom behind it as she flashes to the wet feeling of the axe sinking into Raymond's neck.

"Eve. There's no need to get defensive, it was a compliment. And it would take way too much training to get you anywhere near the level of an assassin, I mean my god you turned your back on a psychopath with a gun. You're smart but incredibly reckless. But you can give any idiot a gun or a knife and get a dead body. Intelligence though, that's something more niche and interesting. The mind behind the gun is where you are needed. Well, more the mind behind the person who tells, the gun where to point. Certainly don't want you being a handler, your track record with that got one of the most powerful men in the world killed and lost us out on a super weapon."

"And what if I refuse?" Again, Eve tries to put some venom behind it but it just comes out weak as the pain in her side grows more excruciating. The woman wasn't kidding when she said they hadn't given her anything for pain. 

"Oh Eve, why are you asking such a silly question? We kill you obviously. Besides, what do you have to go to? You basically don't exist to the British government, your estranged husband is in jail as the prime suspect in the murder of the woman he was having an affair with..."

"HE'S WHAT!" Eve shouted, the mention of Niko being a shock to her system.

The woman sighs like she wasn't wanting to go into further detail. "It's nothing we give a shit about, frankly I'm surprised you give a shit but it is kind of funny, and as a show of good faith I can tell you, would you appreciate that?" She cocks her head, voice dripping in honey.

Eve sighs and steadies herself before saying to the woman in her most polite tone, "Please tell me what's happened to Niko."

She smiles, like someone who was pleased to see their dog sit for the first time. "Well he was found in a locked storage unit with a woman who was killed in a very... dramatic fashion." The woman's eyes sparkle with her fun at hint dropping.

"Villanelle," Eve irks out through ground teeth.

"Oh most definitely. But it was a nasty scene they found him in and who's going to believe 'my wife's assassin girlfriend killed by girlfriend. The point is there is nothing of your old life left for you to go back to. And we obviously know what Villanelle thinks of you since she shot you and left you to die. So as I was saying, you can work for us and I can turn on your morphine drip and let you rest and recuperate. Or you can refuse and I fill you with enough morphine that you fall asleep go into respiratory depression, stop breathing and that'll be the end of the 'thrilling spy adventures of Eve Polastri'." Eve is pretty sure that if this woman isn't a psychopath she has to be one of the biggest narcissists she's ever met since she has never seen anyone chuckle at their own terrible attempts at humor in her life.

Eve sighs, and she knows somewhere in her mind it should take more thought than this, but the woman was right, it was as simple as does she want to get in line or die. She had already in a way been giving that choice multiple times. With Carolyn it was "accept you've been manipulated or any chance at your old life dies." With Villanelle it was "accept your old life is dead and run away with me or die". But Eve had been cocky, she thought the desperate woman crying out to her that she belonged to her would never hurt her. You can't. I can. You wouldn't. She did. This woman though, Eve had no delusions about how easy it would be for her to end Eve's life. It was this or nothing.

"So what exactly do you want me to do?"


	2. Watch the Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve reflects as she recovers.

It took Eve about 2 more weeks to really heal from the gunshot wound. It was still painful, Villanelle had got her in the stomach region, mirroring where she had previously stabbed the assassin. There were times when Eve wished it had been a fatal shot, because the very non-fatality of it made Eve face the truth that Villanelle hadn't been trying to kill her, just hurt her, make a statement. After she confirmed she would prefer to work for The Twelve rather than die, the woman (who told Eve to call her Heidi), gave her the pain medication like she said and told her she could rest for now and that work would start the next day. Work, as it turned out for now was Eve debriefing on everything she knew about MI6, her operations with Carolyn, Aaron Peel, The Ghost, Villanelle and Konstantin. "Pretty much anything that can be useful, and even if it's not useful, don't leave anything out, wouldn't want us to think you're hiding information from your saviors" is how Heidi had worded it. Eve was given a laptop to type her reports on, but it only had word-pad on it, no internet connection, no anything else. There was no TV, Eve didn't have her phone so the only thing left for her to do was reflect and type. She started off with everything she knew about Carolyn. There was enough rage at the betrayal she felt that Eve had no moral qualms about writing down every crooked detail she knew about the woman.

Except for Kenny. She didn't make mention of Carolyn's son in her documents by name. She was sure The Twelve probably already knew of his existence anyways. She felt like such a fool when she thought of her last interactions with Kenny. He tried to help her, warn her and she cast him aside and ignored him, blinded by her obsession with Villanelle. That was the report she would do last, would have to think more carefully about. How she could tell them what she knew about Villanelle without sounding like a crazy person. But was she crazy? She threw away everything, got multiple people killed including one she killed herself, and for what? She didn't even know what it had all been for anymore. But if The Twelve read her account of Villanelle and saw how crazy she had been, maybe still was, they might think she's not useful anymore and kill her.

It soon became routine. A few times a day a doctor would check on her healing, she would write and Heidi would come in at midday and in the late afternoon to read what Eve had written. She would take the laptop and while reading through it ask Eve follow up questions and record the answers. She would even compliment Eve on her thoroughness. All in all Heidi seemed quite pleased with Eve's performance and didn't give any indication that she felt like Eve was holding back.

Soon Eve was walking around, stretching, getting her strength back. She wasn't allowed to leave her room though. Not that it mattered, From what Eve could see out of the one barred window they were surrounded by countryside, no other buildings in sight. Eventually all the other reports were done, the only thing left was Villanelle. She kept it as impersonal as she could. Just stated facts, but given Eve knew Villanelle had been working for The Twelve at the time, she had to be careful to not leave out too much since they had their own account of the missions and she didn't want to make them suspicious. She tried to focus on things like how she had made the connections between the different murders and tied them to Villanelle.

Then came Paris. Did she mention it or not. She had to leave it out. There was no way she could talk about Paris without betraying there was something deeper and more twisted between her and Villlanelle. She told herself that if they knew about it they wouldn't have decided to keep her anyways since it would show what an unstable liability she could be. She finally finished up with the recount of Rome and simply stated that after leaving the hotel Villanelle shot her to get away, not wanting to continue working for MI6.

If Heidi could tell the difference between this and Eve's other reports she didn't comment on it. Eve wanted to tell herself that they didn't know the extent of her and Villanelle's interactions but perhaps it was just a polite secret.  
Heidi closed the laptop and stood to leave. "Well Eve, I think we've covered everything pretty well. The doctor says you're fully recovered and while this has been a lovely vacation, It's time to put you to real work. We head out tomorrow morning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think.


	3. Takes to the sky like a bird in flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve learns what she will be doing for the 12.

Early the next morning a large man in a suit came to Eve's room and said Heidi was ready for her. Eve didn't have anything with her, just the clothes The Twelve had supplied her. They made their way out of the building to find Heidi awaiting them in a helicopter. Eve strapped in and they soon took off, flying over the Italian countryside.

"Where are we going?" Eve asked.

"Switzerland. It's where I prefer to work out of. This location is only used when work in the area has to be done, it's isolated which is nice but doesn't have as much of the tech and securities you'll need for your work."

"And what exactly is my work? You never told me what you wanted me to do after giving all the information I had."

"I'm going to start you off easy. Well what should be easy for you giving your skill sets."

"What skill set do you mean?"

Heidi smiles to herself, like she gets joy out of feeling like she is the one with all the answers. "You ever see the Butterfly Effect, Eve?"

Eve has to blink, confused by the oddness of the question given the supposed high stakes situation her life is now. "The Ashton Kutcher movie? I mean yeah like 10 years ago."

"Well the movie was ham-handed with the concept, I mean really blowing someone up with dynamite is not the flap up a butterfly's wing, but the real principle is how we like to operate. We like to keep things neat. To find just the right target to get the result we want with as little fuss as possible, so as not to raise suspicion."

"When you say target you mean killing people?" Eve's blood ran cold at the thought that her job was going to be choosing who lives and who dies.

"Not necessarily. For example your boss Frank, we were looking for an in for MI5 for intel and some light interference and all it took to have him in our pocket was money. The money ones are easy. Some are harder though, like with how Carolyn Martens put the squeeze on Konstantin by holding his family. Kidnappings are a pain, require more man power and are less cost effective but sometimes it's nice when you need that extra leverage. So I'm going to give you some businesses we need.... messed with and your job is to find that domino to tap over. That's also how I am starting you off easy, I can tell from your history that you love international intrigue but that would have you interfering with some of our other big picture projects and we can't have that." 

Eve's trying not to be excited. She really is. She's trying to feel sad and remind herself that her old life is gone, Niko is in jail, she'll never see her home again, and that this is criminal activity. But that electric spark that made her make that board connecting all of Villanelle's murders, all those years of trying to see connections is right here in front of her. When for years in MI5 she was told she was just seeing things and working above her pay grade, now it was her job. More than her job it was her life, since there was certainly no personal life left to her.

"But some you will kill." Eve states, not as a question but as a matter of fact.

"If that's the best course then yes. Sometimes it's just cleaner to have someone out of the way. You can suggest ways to deal with the target and creative solutions are always appreciated. One of my favorites in terms of it's simple elegance was we simply replaced a CEO's wife's birth control with placebos. She got pregnant and we knew that he had had an estranged relationship with his business obsessed father and wouldn't want to do the same to his child so he stepped down from his position. The company's stock plummeted and one of our company's was able to buy them out for much cheaper."

"That is... elegant." Eve admitted. No one died, a child is getting an attentive father, it doesn't have to be all bad. Maybe she could do this without feeling like a killer. But then she got ice in the pit of her stomach of what if that had been her. What if months ago when she had started sniffing around The Twelve and Villanelle that one day the pack of condoms Niko bought at the Tesco all had holes poked in them. She shivered to shake the thought out of her.

"With the murders that first got me involved in all this. That's one thing I never understood. I recognized it was Villanelle doing them a lot of the time because of her technique, but I never found out how they were all connected. Some were fairly high profile politicians and businessmen, others just seemed like ordinary people. How were they all connected?"

"They weren't. The only connection was that enough of the higher ups in the organization had an interest in messing with that particular company, country or political outcome to dedicate resources to eliminating a target. We don't want things connected. That was how you found out about Aaron Peel and The Ghost. He thought he was being clever but he was sloppy, too many deaths in too short a time frame, making them look like accidents or not." That caused Eve to stop and think for a bit. It's one of those things that at this point just seems typical for how her life has been. That was the start of this madness, this obsession that had taken over her, and the only connection was this shadow she could barely even see.

"That is basically what your first assignment is going to be. There's a small regional bank in America, only about 10 locations, but it has been growing too quickly for our liking and enchroaching on the territory of banks we have a vested interest in. You tell me the what Jenga block needs to be pulled out to get the tower wobbling and if we get the results we like we will expand your scope." Heidi pulls a large packet out of a briefcase she had by her side. "Here is your preliminary information. You can read it over the rest of the flight.

Eve starts to read and learn more about the bank. It is a nice distraction from the monotony of the helicopter ride. Before long she can feel they are starting to descend. The helicopter thuds to a halt, landing on the ground. The bodyguard rises to open the door and Eve is immediately hit by cool mountain air. 

"Well Eve, welcome to your new home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to have the chapter titles be the lyrics to "The Chain" but it's gonna be a minute before we build to Villanelle and Eve meeting back up where "And if you don't love me now You will never love me again" So just going to do other Fleetwood Mac lyrics that better fit the chapters. I love that I've been getting comments on here and feel free to comment or hit me up on tumblr to talk Killing Eve.
> 
> Also, I have been posting kind of short chapters in rapid succession cause I figure if it's written why not put it out there but if enough people who like and follow the story say they would prefer me to make them longer chapters with a little more time between chapter releases I could switch it up but I am trying to get through this one somewhat quickly since I've still got all that post finale energy and don't want it to wain and then suddenly this story ends up unfinished.


	4. In the stillness of remembering what you had and what you lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve gets acquainted with her new home and dives into her job.

Eve had been expecting an office building, something cold and sterile like a power plant. The building before her looked more like the hotel from 'The Shining'. The 4 story structure looked picturesque nestled between the mountains and alpine trees.

"This is your base?" Eve asked almost incredulous.

"Yeah, I really wanted to buy a castle but the problem with castles is you have to deal with them being "historically significant" and you'll get tourists coming around to stare at it and while I love to ham up the 'Illuminati' vibe from time to time, actually being a secret organization and living in a castle is ostentatious." Heidi quirked her head at Eve. "Were you expecting a shit hole?"

"I mean kind of I was thinking abandoned warehouse not a ski lodge."

"Well Eve, like I said this is my main base of operation and I don't risk being arrested for war crimes to not live a fabulous lifestyle." Eve was reminded of Villanelle and her love of all things fabulous and expensive. The expensive clothes and perfume she gave her, the flowers.... Eve snapped herself out of her reverie to follow Heidi who was heading up the walk to the mansion. "You'll be living here as well as working. For the first week you will be escorted from you living quarters to your work area but as long as you behave we will put some slack on the leash. Who know's you may even work yourself up to traveling to the nearby towns."

The inside was stately Gothic architecture, dark wood furniture, elegant tapestries, crystal light fixtures. Eve was trying to not look too impressed but it was all very much playing into the most stereotypical spy fantasy. She was half expecting to bump into Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in the hallways. Heidi led her to the 3rd floor down a hallway that seemed very much like a hotel room before letting her in one of the doors.

"These will be your quarters. I would say hope it's to your liking but that may sarcastic and this is nicer than some 5 star hotels." Inside Eve saw a suite that was very clean and smartly decorated, but more modern and toned down compared to the extravagance of the halls she had passed through to get here. Joanna Gaines vs Downton Abbey. The living room contained a love seat, coffee table and a fair sized TV. The room here was a kitchenette with a Keurig, mini fridge, and microwave as well as a table and chair. Through an open door Eve could see a spacious bedroom with a queen sized bed and accompanying furniture leading to a bathroom. Heidi wasn't kidding, this was nicer than Eve's first apartment out of college. Nothing like duck egg blue pillows to make you forget you're a prisoner to a crime syndicate.

"Unfortunately you won't have any internet access during your off time, can't risk you contacting anyone from your past life. Same for no cell phone or any form of outside communication. There's clothes, toiletries and you can request food to stock the mini fridge. There are about a dozen other operatives that live here full time including myself so we have a kitchen staff that you can order room service from for your meals. You can rest for the remainder of the evening, tomorrow at 8 am sharp we will take you to your work area."

With that Heidi and the bodyguard left, leaving Eve alone in her new.... home. It was strange, it felt like she was just in a nice hotel, like when she had traveled to Berlin with Bill. Not sure what to do with herself, Eve decided to try watching TV to keep from being bored. Most of the channels she flipped through were in German. Luckily the tv had Netflix on it. Flipping through the channels and seeing how many BBC shows were on made her heart ache with homesickness, the first real time it was striking her, like the nail in the coffin of her never going back to her life in London. She put on The Great British Bake Off, she had seen all the episodes countless times, whenever she would cook or do chores around the house she would put it on in the background. As soon as Sue and Mel said "On your marks, get set, bake!" the tears burst from Eve like the cry of a feral cat. Like a panic attack she felt like she was sinking further and further into herself, into the despair that this was it. Everything was gone and she had nowhere to go. The home Niko had tried to provide for her that she refused to love and appreciate, the job and friends she had, she would never be able to talk to any of her family again. This is what you wanted. Villanelle's words echoed in her mind. Was this what she had wanted? There had never been an end goal in site, it was just the hunt the thrill of the chase, to find the assassin that had so fascinated her. But she dove so deep into this world she wanted to be a part of she lost herself and now there was nothing left. So she wept. Mourned for the life she had given up, for the Eve she had killed with her obsession and recklessness.

When she woke up the sun was just starting to rise, casting the first rays of light through the living room window. The tv was black with the Netflix "are you still watching?" message on. Eve had exhausted herself with her catharsis and had fallen asleep on the couch. Her stomach cringed with hunger after skipping dinner last night. She shuffled over to the mini fridge hoping it had at least been stocked with something she could make a breakfast out of, not wanting to have to interact with people just yet but all it contained was a few bottles of water. Opening the pantry she found packets for the Keurig and some sugar and artificial creamer packets and popped it in to brew her coffee. Eve went into the bedroom where she saw the phone for order room service. There were no buttons on it, almost like the phone in a school that only called the front desk. It rang as soon as she picked it up and in 2 rings a polite sounding woman answered and asked her to confirm that this was Ms. Eve wanting to order food. Surprised by being called Ms. Eve, she was caught off guard for a moment before saying she wanted to order an everything bagel and cream cheese. The order was confirmed and told it would be there in the next 10 minutes. Eve looked at the clock and saw it was 7:30. She remembered Heidi saying she would be there at 8 which served as a last jolt to push Eve into her morning routine and taking a quick shower. Eve's food arrived just as she was getting out of the shower. She rushed. between eating, drinking her coffee and putting on clothes, trying to keep an eye on the clock. Eve had been surprised when she opened her closet to see how well the clothes The Twelve had bought for her matched what she would usually wear. Comfortable but professional slacks and blouses along with various night wear. Getting out of the shower Eve had finally realized just how cold she was, which made sense given she was in Switzerland and after getting dressed grabbed an extra sweater from the closet. Eve soon heard a courtesy knock at her door before Heidi let herself in.

"Ah, glad to see you're ready to go. Come along Eve." Heidi immediately turned around the briskly walk down the hallway, Eve having to hurry to keep up. They reached an elevator and inside Eve saw there was actually 2 basement floors. Heidi pressed her fingerprint on a scanner then pushed the B2 button. Heidi made no move to make small talk with Eve and she was grateful for it, the exhaustion of her un-restful sleep having her in no mood to try fake niceties with her jailer. Exiting the elevator they headed down the hall before turning a large corner into a room made up of 4 large co-workers.

"This is where you will be working Eve. Your 3 co-workers are Steven, Chloe and Andre. They have their own assignments but they are here if you need help. Chloe in particular is good with the technology and will show you how to use it to gather information on the bank employees. Same as with your room you can call food down here. The bathroom is right down the hall but don't get any ideas about wandering around. Someone will pick you up to escort you back to your room at 6 pm. I would like you to have a list of targets in order of your perceived priority within 5 days, figuring 3 days to research,a day to figure out the 5 best targets and a day to condense all the information into a report . For each target you will log all the information you have gathered into our database so that way we have it for later use since you never know when you need to know something about someone.

With that statement Heidi makes an exasperated sigh. "Oh if only someone had a piece of technology that had all the information about anybody in the world at the touch of their fingertips. Wouldn't that have been splendid for this kind of work?" The glare Heidi shoots Eve makes her blood run cold. Aaron Peel's weapon would have been perfect for this and now knowing this is how The Twelve operates Eve can see why they were so eager to get their hands on the tech.

"Anyways," Heidi continues, relaxing her features, "that should about cover it. Good luck Eve. Try not to fuck up, I would hate to have to kill you after we just spent all this time and money patching you up." Heidi giggled to herself in her sickly way and left the room. The blonde woman sitting in one of the desks came up to her.

"I am Chloe, your desk is the empty one obviously." She had a very thick french accent but sounded rather bored that she had been put in charge of managing Eve. Eve sat down at the indicated computer. "I have already logged you in, you can reset the password, not that it matters much since we can see everything you do on here. We have a general database you can check first to see if any of your potential targets have been investigated and archived already, I would suggest checking that first to save time. We have a special Facebook that lets you see anyone's profile and information regardless of their privacy settings. It however cannot send or receive any communications or performs actions such as liking or commenting so don't bother trying. Also try to resist looking up anyone from your past life, it will be noticed and they don't like to see that."

"How do you know about my past life?" Eve asks.

Chloe looks at her, again with the half bored expression of a college student in the middle of a 4 hour lecture. "If you're here this is your new life. I don't care what your past is or how we got you here, I'm just hear to push you out of the nest." With that Chloe spent another 10 minutes explaining the various applications on her computer and how they were to be used to help her mission. As soon as she finished her explanation she left Eve to back to her own desk and went right back to work.  
Over the next 3 days Eve settled into a routine. The technology came easy to her and picking through all of these people's lives distracted her from the emptiness that was her own life. It was like the job was custom made for her. She lost herself pouring into all of these other people's lives. At times she felt like a voyeur, a stranger staring into a world that wasn't hers. Do you like to watching her or do you like being watched. While Hugo had been talking about Villanelle, Eve couldn't help thinking on how the nose it had been. Watching people. Prying into their lives. Now Eve was "The Ghost" drifting through all that was personal and dear to these people without them even knowing she existed. There were times she felt drunk on it, the power that came with this job. It made the tech she had at MI6 look pathetic. All the things she could see, all the things she could no. But the more she dived in, chasing the thrill of violating people's privacy like that the more empty the time she wasn't working felt. Whenever she went back to her suite it crept into her, the loneliness, the lack of anything to really do. Part of it was the fact that everything was taken care of for her. Even when things were rough with Niko, she had the distraction of laundry still needed to be done, shopping, cooking. Now all it took was a phone call and she had dinner, her dirty laundry ended up hung back in her closet, she didn't even need to make the bed. The second night she had ordered 2 bottles of wine up to her room and after drinking one smashed the other against a wall. The next day it was cleaned up with and there was a note saying "If you damage the room again there will be no more wine," and while the slight thrill Eve got at her microscopic rebellion, it wasn't worth losing what numbed some of the void that crept at the edges of her mind.

It was 4:00 on the 5th day, and Eve had her report on potential targets nearly done, but she kept flipping the first and second targets, trying to decide which was the better prime one. The first was Dillon Pratchett, a manager at one of the banks locations. After looking through his Instagram and Facebook Eve had noticed he had quite an uptick in lifestyle in the last few months. New car, fancy trips, lots of dates to expensive restaurants. Eve was able to see into his finances and noticed was more money than a bank manager should have and realized he was embezzling from the bank. Her recommendation was to leak the investigation of the embezzlement to the local media and ruin public opinion in the bank as well as cause a federal reserve investigation. Second option was one of the members of the bank's board played at being an ultra conservative home down christian values member of the community but every few months visited a dominatrix he paid to peg him while wearing a nun's habit. Good old fashion blackmail, control him to make risky decisions that would eventually cause the bank to fail. Eve decided going with Dillon, if only because the board member was just so stereotypical and bored Eve.

When 6 pm came one of the usual bodyguards came to pick Eve up, but as they got in the elevator he took Eve to the 4th floor, a place she had never been. It opened up into a lavish foyer, off of which he led her into a grand library where Heidi was sitting at a desk looking over some papers. The guard stood waiting at the door as Eve entered the room.

"Ah Eve, there you are have a seat, indicating the ornate Victorian style chair seated in front of the desk. "Let's see what you've come up with." Heidi clacked away on her computer pulling up Eve's report. She read it in mostly silence, a few mhmms along the way. Eve wasn't sure what to do with herself other than sit there. Even though Heidi wasn't even looking in her direction Eve felt laid bare and exposed like any second Heidi would reach out and peel a strip of Eve's skin away leaving only fascia exposed. After a few more minutes Heidi looked up at her. "I'm impressed Eve. Very thorough and well written. While there will be a vote to decide on which target we go after I have to say I agree with you on Mr. Pratchett being the better target. I've had cases before with blackmailing where they end up killing themselves like a wild dog chewing its one leg off only to bleed out."

"Thank you," Eve replied, genuinely pleased. The praise sent shivers up her spine, scratching some itch of satisfaction that before had only been teased by Carolyn. With Carolyn no matter how hard she had worked, how much she had sacrificed, and she had sacrificed it all, it had never seemed enough to the woman. Between Carolyn and Villanelle the women had just been voids for Eve to drift further and further down.

"Well Eve, as you have noticed by now we don't do traditional weekends, but whenever one of our operatives finishes a project we allow them the next 2 days off to rest. Would you like the rest or do you want to dive right in to the next one?"

Heidi could see the flash of panic in Eve's eyes and smiled to herself.

"I'll start on the next one," Eve replied too quickly, the idea of having to sit there in her room, pacing like a tiger in a cage for the next 2 days sounding tortuous to Eve.

"Well alright then," Heidi replied, getting exactly the response she thought she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the first part of this (before Eve started her assignment) written yesterday and was going to post this as 2 separate chapters but the first bit looked kind of dinky so was like eh why not do a big one and get us moving. At the moment I want to flush out Eve's involvement with the 12 before I have her reconnect with Villanelle and while I know we all hated having to wait 5 episodes before they interacted face to face last season, I think the build up is needed to have Eve be where I want her emotionally and mentally when she sees her girlfriend again. I love and greatly appreciate all the comments I've been getting and thank you all so much for reading. This is my first fic and I've been overjoyed with the response it has gotten and all of y'alls kindness and encouragement.


	6. Every night that goes between I feel a little less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year timeskip and Eve's life withhin The Twelve has become a routine until she is told of her next mission.

Over the next year the routine became very much the same for Eve. She would get a case, find the target, write her report, repeat. For the three months the jobs gave her a thrill but they were all of farily similar caliber. The patterns in people became so predictable. It was like a lineup of the 7 deadly sins. The greedy businessman stealing from a non-profit, the jealous brother who had been passed up for leadership in the family business, the wrathful scorned employee was always too happy to take their former employer down. She started finishing cases in 4 days instead of 5. Her meeting with Heidi were the extent of any human interaction she had. When she had first started she had wondered what her co-workers pasts were that had put them in a position to be working for The Twelve, but after the first 2 weeks with none of them trying to engage her in conversation the curiosity slipped away from her. At 6 months in she did get a spark ignited when her case load variety was expanded. She started doing more political work, figuring out how to interfere in campaigns, spread conspiracy theories to sow dissent, divide opposing parties to help the one The Twelve wanted to win. Those jobs took weeks at a time and gave Eve that fresh thrill her first few jobs had. Especially when political assassination targets became involved, as that was what had brought her into this whole underworld in the first place. With the increased difficult and intrigue of cases Eve was able to cope emotionally enough to be just a step above severely depressed.

As far as for her free time, she had gained some freedoms. She was able to leave her room, walk around the grounds. The only time a guard walked with her was to and from her office in the basement since Eve didn't have the clearance yet to operate the elevator herself. Heidi had informed Eve that now that she was established enough within the organization they would be paying her a stipend. All of her living expenses and food were covered already but it was to allow her to buy things to "make it feel more like home." So every few cases she would take Heidi up on taking a day off from work and that day a bodyguard would take her into one of the nearby towns. After such isolation whenever she would suddenly be in a crowd of people Eve would suddenly feel very odd. A stranger in a strange land. All these people smiling and going about town, blissfully unaware how easy their lives were to fracture, how all it took was her writing a paragraph on why they were the best target to take out to accomplish The Twelve's goal and their life could be ruined or ended. She would walk through the shops and every now and then pick out things for her apartment, mostly books. She had become a voracious reader during the last few months since she still wasn't allowed internet access in her room and there was only so much tv and movies she could watch. Someone to watch movies with. Loneliness now just seemed like a fact of life to Eve. That this was how it was and she was to be alone. She wondered how lonely Villanelle had been. Her anger at being shot had subsided the more she worked for The Twelve. She tried not to think about VIllanelle too much, tried to do anything to distract herself for it but she was always there, like she had planted millions of little landmines in Eve's mind that would go off whenever something would remind her of the assassin who said she loved her. I hurt myself, it doesn’t hurt; I buy what I want, I don’t’ want it; I do what I like, I don’t like it. I’m just…so bored. That was the thing the most that made her start to finally accept that her and Villanelle were the same because that insatiable void of boredom had overcome Eve. She would buy curios in the shops to try and add a sense of hominess to her apartment but they became just things on the shelves when she got them home. She'll spend entire evening not actually watching anything, just flipping through Netflix watching 5 minutes of a show or movie before hating it for not capturing her interest more.

This behavior hadn't gone unnoticed by Heidi. Every few months she was evaluated by a psychologist named Jerome. Eve was told he made the rounds of all The Twelves bases and field agents to check to make sure no one was about to go on a co-worker killing spree. The first time he had evaluated her there had been a lot of focus on how she felt about working for The Twelve, leaving her old life behind, and how she was adjusting. Villanelle had come up but at the time Eve had been so bitter and confused about it that he had dropped it and put it as something they would address next time. As time went on and Eve grew colder, more bored and numb the evaluations grew shorter. But the one thing Eve could never do completely was mask showing emotion when Jerome asked about Villanelle. Eve would say there is nothing I want to discuss there, sometimes Jerome would press but when it came to her Eve was a brick wall. Her thoughts and feelings for Villanelle, as hard as they were to define and name, were the one thing Eve could hold to herself and not let them touch. Eve carried Villanelle like a wound,a bruise on her mind and heart that never healed and ached whenever she pressed on it.

It was after another what to Eve had felt like a non-eventful meeting with Jerome, yet this time he seemed much more persistent in trying to get her to talk about Villanelle and but she shut him down the same was as every other time. However, instead of being led back to her room, the bodyguard, who's name she didn't know but who she had by now formed this quiet connection with, like the person you would always see but never talk to on the bus to work, told her Heidi wanted to meet with her. Heidi's office was now nothing new to Eve, and she settled into the chair across from her boss with the same boredom that was now her modus operandi.

"Good to see you again Eve. Your work on the american senate election worked out very well. Clever finding the divides between the religious and fiscally conservative constituents."

"Thanks," Eve replied, the praise the same as it always was.

"So Eve, you've been with us about a year now, and during that time Jerome has told me that there is a certain subject that you refuse to go into further detail with him."

Eve suddenly sits up straight in her chair, not expecting this turn in conversation.

"Do you know what I am referring to Eve or do you want to make me say it?" Heidi asks using the same fake sweet tone that Eve has grown so used to but is still irked by.

Eve sighs. "Villanelle."

"Yes Villanelle, our previous favorite fab assassin. Now Eve, why do you think I'm asking about Villanelle?"

Eve's breath shudders, something deep in her twisting and gnawing, her heart racing. "She's somehow involved in my next assignment?"

Heidi smiles like a Cheshire cat. "A bit more than just involved Eve. Villanelle is your next assignment."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to do more buildup but then went fuck it I want them to meet back up now.


	7. I don't wanna know the reasons why

"What do you mean she is my assignment." Eve asks, dreading where this conversation was going. It had finally come. Eve had thought about it a number of times. She had always wondered if there was some other group or division or whatever they called them that had pursued Villanelle. People are going to be angry. Well guess The Twelve were finally making a move on that anger.

"Well Eve, we wanted to give you time to get settled in first, become used to us and the way we do things. And for the record, you have been doing extremely well, your work is noticed and that is why you have been getting increasingly complicated assignments. This however, is... well let's just say it's the start of our big picture plan for you. We were originally planning to wait a few months longer but certain events have made our needs more pressing." Heidi held her hands together, just fingertips touching like she was a super villain deep in thought.

"What did she do? Why are you now going after her?" Eve asked, urgency in her voice, the first real emotion her voice had carried in months.

"She hasn't done anything. In fact it is almost concerning how quiet Villanelle has been. No the reason we want her now is as much as an annoyance and a liability as she was, no one was more effective than Villanelle when it came to assassinations. In the last month we have had a few botched assassinations, three agents killed and one captured by the authorities due to sloppy work. We've decided that despite the risks that come with her we are willing to take them to get her expertise back."

Eve sits there in silence, the AOL dial up sound ringing in her mind as her brain tries to catch up to what Heidi is saying. "Wait this isn't a hit?"

"No Eve, god a hit on VIllanelle would just muck up our lack of proper assassin problem even worse considering how many it would take to get the job done. No, after talking to Jerome, with what he saw from Villanelle over the years and his evaluation of you, we've decided to take a different approach to managing the little terror. We need you to bring her back and then be her handler."

Eve's mind was racing, not sure how to process the 180 turn in where she thought this conversation was going.

"Why me?"

"Oh Eve, come the fuck on, do you think we are idiots? That is borderline insulting."

"No I mean, you said in the beginning you didn't want me to be a handler because of how I handled Villanelle, how the Peel case had gone."

"Hmmm let's see, a few days after she shot you let's ask you to babysit her?"

"That's another thing!" Eve's tone rising at this point. "What makes you think I would even agree to this. I want nothing to do with her! She's why I'm here in the first place!"

"Eve. I would like to think that you know how I work enough by now to know that I don't give a fuck how you make it happen, just that you do make it happen. We've been keeping our eye on her, we know where she is, and you are going to go get her, bring her back and make her behave. End of discussion."

"And what if I can't?"

"Can't what? Get her to come with you? Failure is not an option. We will not extract you unless she's with you. As far as controlling her. Well just consider any failings on her part as your own and they will be dealt with accordingly. You leave tomorrow, you are dismissed."

"So all this was for nothing? All this choosing targets and analyzing these situations was for nothing since you only wanted me for her?"

"It wasn't for nothing Eve, you got a lot accomplished but we have hundreds of people who do your job around the world. When we chose to save you it was for serving greater needs. If that feels like some sort of betrayal I thought you would be used to that by now. Plus you're finally ready for her."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Oh, I think you know what it means."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little on the shorter side but wanted to just get this one out.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic but I am just abuzz with trying to think of how we can go from Eve bleeding out on the ground into season 3 and this is what I came up with. Any feedback, suggestions or ideas would be appreciated. You can also message me about it on my AO3 tumblr, https://eastofeden22.tumblr.com/.
> 
> Name from the Fleetwood Mac song since to me it captures like the anger and angst and frustrations of their relationship.


End file.
